


Before the Costume Party

by 264feet



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Backstory, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Papyrus's long journey to his battle body, Papyrus-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/264feet/pseuds/264feet
Summary: Papyrus wasn't always the Cool Dude we know today. A long time before the fateful costume party for which he made his battle body, he was an awkward and unhappy engineer working on the CORE. His journey to Cool Dudehood would involve a sudden move to Snowdin, lots of secrets, an annoying dog, and a pair of matching jackets.[On hold]





	1. Papyrus wakes up from a big nap

**Author's Note:**

> "Hotland, huh? I know it like the back of my hand... Which, since I'm always wearing gloves.... I don't know anything about!"  
> \- Papyrus, when called after leaving the Lab

Papyrus woke up on an examining table. A thick wool blanket covered him up to his neck, itching him through his bodysuit. The sterile stench of the lab burned his nasal cavity, but it was his best clue to his location; his vision wouldn’t come back for another several moments.

He had to fiddle with each sense before he realized he wasn’t dead. If he were dead, he would have to be in hell to still be in the lab. He was reasonably sure he wasn’t dead or in hell. Hell was supposed to be where bad monsters went, and he wasn’t a bad monster. In fact, he was fantastic. Not that anyone knew.

His memories had scattered like marbles in his mind, and he slipped on them trying to pick them up: he fell into memories of terrified screams, the roar of metal tearing open, an overwhelming heat, and pain. The pain was the last thing he remembered. He had to admit, that was suspiciously like dying, and Papyrus didn’t like it very much.

A headache started to settle in as he thought. At least that was familiar. Usually he had a headache from his insomnia, but potentially-dying had at least gotten him to take a nap. Now, if only it wasn’t with such an itchy blanket, in such a sterilized room, with a fluorescent light shining directly down into his eyes. He might as well give up remembering. Sans would know, as usual. Sans just had to know everything.

He felt some kind of peace in the fact that one thing he knew that Sans didn’t was that he was happy. Or rather, relieved. He woke up with a sense of finality, as if some long period of his life was finally over. At least he had that. He was about to mark this new chapter of his life/death by throwing the itchy blanket of of him when the sound of voices stilled his hand. Perhaps the first bad monsters in hell, Papyrus thought.

“... what do you remember about it?” Sans said. He seemed to be standing right outside the room Papyrus was in.

Perhaps not hell, then. Or maybe it was-- who was he to ask questions? Papyrus stayed perfectly still, itchy blanket and all. His brother had a habit of not talking too much when he knew Papyrus was listening.

“I-- I dunno,” said a nervous, feminine voice. “J-just you almost fell in, a-and…”

“But why?” Sans pressed. “Do you remember why I was that close to it?”

“I d-don’t know why you were there!” she said. “Y-you’re our Principal Investigator!”

“No,” said Sans, and Papyrus could tell the lights had died in his eyes, “I’m not. My father was.”

The door opened and Sans stomped in. Papyrus tried to look like he was asleep. He needed to hear more of this. And if they knew he was awake, the last thing he wanted was to be doted on by his brother.

“Good, he’s still resting,” the nervous voice said. “Everything must’ve set just fine.”

Sans chuckled. “He’s a trooper, alright.”

If Papyrus could have rolled his eyes, he would’ve. He didn’t care about this. Who the hell was this ‘father’ person that Sans mentioned? It had been just the two of them as long as he could remember.

Unfortunately, they didn’t seem eager to return to the topic. “He’ll wake up soon, right?” Sans said.

“It… it should be soon,” said the nervous voice. Papyrus tried to place the voice to a name or face- at least, he could tell it was definitely another scientist- but his head hurt too much. “He’s probably just exhausted.”

“The CORE’s stable, too?” Sans said-- as usual, shifting his attention away from Papyrus as soon as he knew that he at least wasn’t dead.

“M-mostly,” she said. “U-um, some of the controls are labeled in a weird f-font… It looks like h-hands?”

Some kind of thump. Not the sound of someone collapsing, but the sound of someone slamming their hands on a desk. Papyrus wished he could open his eyes to look without giving himself away. “Damn it,” Sans cursed. He almost never cursed. “This can’t be happening...”

“N-n-no need to freak out!” she said. “W-we can f-figure it o-out, and--”

“I’ll come read it later,” Sans said. “Right now, I need to be with Papyrus.”

It sounded like the nervous person was shifting on her feet, as if afraid of what Sans would do. “I’ll be o-outside,” she said. Papyrus heard her shuffling her feet away. It sounded like a tail was dragging behind her. He tried again to figure out who it was, but gave up.

Truth be told, he didn’t know much about the other scientists, and he stopped caring once they stopped listening to his contributions. It didn’t matter that he hated wearing a lab coat, or rubber gloves, or a hard hat, or pretty much anything that wasn’t his bodysuit or Fluffy Bunny pyjamas; he was still as good an engineer as Sans was a physicist, if not better.

Sans was closer now, by the side of his makeshift cot. “Hey, bro,” he said. “You’ve been asleep for 30 hours by now. That’s, like, beating my record. I just wish it didn’t happen like this.”

His brother was good at jokes, but this had to be his worst. ‘30 hours’? The longest Papyrus had slept in a night was four hours, and that wasn’t all in a row.

“If you can hear me, I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t a joke. Papyrus had to remind himself not to respond. Maybe he was dead after all, because this sure wouldn’t happen in real life.

“I wanted to protect you from all this, but I couldn’t do it,” he said. “And now look at you.”

Even though he had long known, he hadn’t wanted to make it real by consciously thinking it: Sans thought less of him. All the 14-hour shifts, all the not coming home, all the ‘dont worry about it’s, it wasn’t just because he was so dedicated to the CORE. He wasn’t going in a separate, locked section of the lab just for privacy. It was to ‘protect’ him. And from what?

Well, whatever I did, it proved him right, Papyrus thought bitterly.

“You were too good for all this. All this lab work. Your ‘indentured servitude’. You deserve better.”

Coming from Sans’s mouth, it sounded so childish, calling their work here ‘indentured servitude’. After all, they had found home here in the dorms. They had gotten tutoring and care from the scientists and professors here. They had been able to be a part of the project to build the CORE.

But building the CORE didn’t build his reputation at all. In fact, half-dead with only Sans there to keep him company, he felt like less people knew who he was than ever.

Sans seemed to be struggling to figure out what to say next. It had been the first time they had spoken in at least two weeks, and Papyrus couldn’t even talk back without blowing his cover.

“Well, get some rest, bro. Thanks for what you did. And when you wake up,” Sans said, his voice a lot heavier, “I just hope you remember him too.”

It took him a moment to part, but then he walked out of the room, and Papyrus was alone. He felt like he knew even less than he did when he woke up. ‘Dad’, ‘him’, Sans losing his cool-- it didn’t add up. Apparently, he had been asleep for 30 hours; Sans wouldn’t joke about something like that, at least not without an audience. And the nervous voice had mentioned him being healed? From what?

Papyrus considered getting up and going after his brother. He could ask him questions, and tell him he was ok, and help him do his work by his side for a change. But he just listened as Sans’s steps got further and further away. After all, what life awaited him? He heard his own whiny voice: 'indentured servitude'. It was always the same. Sans would be nice to him and let him help with his work-- for a time. And then, like always, Sans would drift away with empty promises and diversion tactics. And then he would be alone, just like now.

He sighed and let himself drift back into an uneasy sleep. It was settled. He was definitely in hell.


	2. Papyrus rides on a train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Glad I don't live in Hotland!" - Papyrus, multiple times when called while in Hotland

Hotland was a lot like Sans: noisy, smelly, and all Papyrus had. At least the latter was going to change today.

The train station stirred all sorts of feelings in Papyrus, but he didn’t know what they were. He was sure he’d been born in Hotland, and for a while he thought he would die here. But he wouldn't! He would be free! Although, this wasn't exactly the set of circumstances in which he hoped he'd leave, and he still didn't know where they were going. Sans had escorted him here pretty much as soon as Papyrus had woken up, saying the indentured servitude ends today. 

One thing he did know was that he wouldn’t miss this place at all. Not the heat. Not the stench. Not the cacophony of machinery, even though Papyrus did appreciate how it prevented Sans from making awkward small talk with him or dodging his questions. Papyrus just stared for a long time at the tracks, mentally sketching and measuring the pieces and aesthetically arranging them, then mentally jumping atop them.

He wouldn’t actually commit suicide, of course! Not before he even became famous! But, admittedly, the idea made him feel better. It was the one act of control and choice he felt he had left.

He hated Hotland. He hated everything about it. He had nothing here.

So why did he feel so sad? 

Some scientists trickled in, one by one, all seeming tired. From what Papyrus could piece together, the CORE had been busted up pretty bad in this ‘accident’. He wished he hadn’t been injured so he could help rebuild it. The scientists asked him gently how he was feeling, champ, he’s such a big strong guy! And he’d ask mechanical specifications about the CORE, and then they would just smile and go talk to Sans.

It reminded him of, whenever he stormed out of the lab on a ‘walk’, he would stare at this train and have the same fantasy every time: stepping aboard the express train to his new life and all his friends waving handkerchiefs to bid him farewell. He had even bought a stack of handkerchiefs for the occasion, but he forgot to buy a stack of friends, too.

“Sorry I’m late!” a girl said. Papyrus turned around. Fuku, a fire elemental girl, was running up and waving at him as if he wouldn’t notice a being of flame in a school uniform charging straight at him. Her traditional breakfast- a charcoal briquette- dangled out of her mouth. She stopped near Papyrus and took the briquette out of her mouth to catch her breath. “Thank goodness, I thought you already left…”

Papyrus put on his biggest smile. “Worry not! The train will not arrive for another five minutes and thirty-four seconds!”

“Wow! Precise as always!” Fuku said. Papyrus would take it as a compliment. It was at least something he had. “So, you’re going to Snowdin, right?”

“Don’t know!” Papyrus said, still trying to smile. “I think so!”

She took a thoughtful bite of the charcoal. “I… think you are. Sans said he spoke with Papa about it.”

It was news to him, and he was the one moving. A surprise! He glared at Sans, still attempting to smile.

“So I’ll finally get to meet him, this ‘Papa’!” Papyrus said. “I hope he’s not as much of a big dumb doofus as you say!”

He kicked himself as soon as he said it. Right, name-calling was okay if it was one’s own relative. He still would step in if someone called Sans a big dumb doofus.

Although, he had the feeling that Sans wouldn’t value his help.

“Anyway, you’re not coming back?” she asked, to which he shook his head. “Why don’t you even have any suitcases?”

Papyrus hadn’t even considered that other people had ‘personal belongings’. People with family heirlooms, and hobbies, and clothes besides a lab coat and body suit. “Well, you can’t pack away my infectious charm!” he said.

“Haha, yeah, I suppose not.”

Silence. Sans spoke to a few scientists in hushed whispers. A giant gear somewhere groaned.

“Um… so, will you write me letters?” she said. “When I get a phone, we could call as well!”

“Of course I shall write you letters!” Papyrus said. “And I’ll mail them too!”

She giggled, and then it was quiet again. Papyrus wondered what Sans was talking about so urgently. Maybe he was trying to explain himself. Papyrus would have loved to hear his explanation: just have to get my idiot brother out of here before he blows something else up. Three minutes and five seconds.

Some of the scientists side-eyed Papyrus as if to judge that his only friend was a school-age girl. He would happily explain to them, if they actually wanted to know the answer and not just judge, that he had met her crying on the edge of a cliff and ever since then they had vented their problems to one another, his about his brother, hers about her father.

But now, with Sans standing right there, he realized that wasn’t much of a basis for a friendship, anyway.

“Erm… any problems with your father recently?” Papyrus asked.

She shook her head. “No, things are… okay,” she said. “When you meet him… please don’t talk about me. I hope you understand.”

He nodded, feeling it was best to keep his mouth shut, lest he say something stupid again. It was hard enough to talk here with all sorts of wrong sensations like hornets in his mind: too loud, too hot, too nervous, he fidgeted with his body suit and it clung to his bones wrong but he couldn’t fix it without setting off a chain reaction. At least he didn’t have skin, he thought. That would rub him all sorts of wrong ways.

“Does your school have power back yet?”

“Yeah. Came back on yesterday.”

He wasn’t sure what else to say. He didn’t know what was really wrong with it besides parts snapping. Judging by Sans’s more-disheveled-than-normal appearance, it looked like he had been working straight since the accident.

Papyrus caught a flash of yellow making its way through the crowd right before he died from his own awkwardness. “Ex-excuse me, pardon me!” she mumbled, mostly to herself. Finally, she made her way through and shoved some kind of box into Sans’s arms.

Jealousy ran like a chill down Papyrus’s back. A going-away present. He could only be so lucky. Sans didn’t even appreciate it: the two of them started to talk in some heated whispering.

The screech of the train silenced them. It was more like a giant cargo car with a caboose which was basically just a few park benches glued to the floor. He couldn’t even bring himself to be jazzed about riding in a word as cool as a ‘caboose’.

A bipedal wolf got off and started hastily unloading the snow exports from Snowdin before they melted. Papyrus watched the conductor fan himself, somehow sweating even though his head was just a diamond, as he got off the train. “Which two of you are Sans and Paprika?”

“That’s our cue,” Sans said, amused. He handed the conductor his ticket and hopped onto the caboose.

“It’s ‘Papyrus’,” Papyrus said, handing the conductor his own ticket.

“Actually, it’s just notebook paper,” the conductor said, checking the ticket. It indeed did just say ‘train ticket’ on notebook paper. “We don’t usually take passengers.”

“I can tell,” Papyrus grumbled, somehow in a worse mood. He turned back to Fuku before he got on the train. “Excuse me? I have a favor to ask.”

He opened his package of handkerchiefs and handed her one. “Could you wave this when the train leaves? Thanks!” he said, before she had a chance to respond. Most of the scientists had already left, just leaving some stragglers, Fuku, and the sweaty lizard that gave Sans his gift. Papyrus made a point of not giving her a handkerchief, too.

Shortly after Papyrus got on, the wolf got back on the train with the conductor and it started to move. He stuck his head partway out the door to watch. At least his daydream would come halfway true.

She did raise the handkerchief to wave it in the air like he wanted, but a sudden gust of wind ripped  it from her hand. It smacked the lizard monster in the face and then peeled off, avoided Fuku’s attempts to grab it, and simply flew away into the CORE.

He just pulled his head back into the train and rested it on the wall behind him, his mind blank. The train started to move faster and faster. Sans was saying something to him, but Papyrus wasn’t listening. He closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep, but he did dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really saved most of the angst for the start, huh?


End file.
